The Judgment of Animals in Classical Greece: Animal Sculpture and ...

that of a dog: his location on the roof of the palace, posture, and vigilance. As the
following discussion shows, all these three are essential elements of the Classical Greek
view of the dog.
The placement of the watchman on the roof(s) (ste/gaij, A. 3) of the palace 234 is
a locale that Classical Greek thought easily associated with the dog. As a passage from
Aristotle’s Great Ethics indicates, the image of a dog spending time on the roof of a
building was familiar canine behavior. In a discussion regarding the question, whether
friendship flourishes between those alike, one of the interlocutors presents refuting
evidence by citing:
The story of a dog that always would sleep upon the same tile ( kerami=doj); 235
and of how Empedocles, when asked why it did so, declared that there was
some affinity between the dog and the [roof-] tile which caused the former
always to seek the latter.” (MM 1208b) [69]
Like the roof of the Argive palace on which the watchman lay, this passage presents the
roof of a building as fitting place for a dog. In this way, the passage reinforces the
similarity between the location of the watchman and that of the dog, 236 and, at the same
time, suggests observation and knowledge of canine behavior.
234 Regarding the visual effect of the presence of the watchman on the roof of the palace, A. Shapiro and P.
Burian, Aeschylus. The Oresteia (Oxford, 2003) 189, note that: “there is no real reason to doubt [that] the
Watchman appeared on the roof as the play began, and [that this position] will also have provided a striking
and probably novel scenic effect.” In support of this view is also N. G. L. Hammond, “Dramatic
Production to the Death of Aeschylus,” GRBS 13 (1972) 434-435, who maintains that it is the first time in
the Oresteia, that a palace background appears on stage where the roof on which the sentry lies is visible.
For a brief discussion of the opposing view that the watchman is not on the roof of the stage building, but
probably on the ground before the palace, see J. C. Hogan, A Commentary on the Complete Greek
Tragedies. Aeschylus (Chicago and London, 1984) 30.
235 According to LSJ 9 , 940, s.v. kerami/j refers explicitly to a “roof-tile.”
236 Although this passage cannot be seen as evidence that the dog was specifically a watchdog, it provides
the ground for discussing modern ethnographic and traveling accounts, which indicate that it is not
uncommon for dogs to spend time and sleep on the roofs of their owners’ houses and also act as watchdogs.
H. Lloyd-Jones, tr., Aeschylus. Oresteia. Agamemnon (Berkeley, 1979) 27, says, for example, that: “in the
Middle East watchdogs still sometimes spend the night on the roof”; E. Fraenkel, Aeschylus. Agamemnon II
(Oxford, 1950) 4, suggests, on the basis of ethnographic research, that “in Egypt and the Sudan the village
dogs prefer to lie at night on the roofs of the houses or huts even when they are not flat.” Dogs spending
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